War
by TeeEye82
Summary: TFP One-Shot: Wheeljack muses on the War. Where it came from, where it's brought us, and where it's going. Living, fighting, and dying. It's all anyone has ever done, right?


_**This is a gift, a little one-shot, for A****nswerthecall who requested something involving Wheeljack in TF:P or Sideswipe in anything else. So I did something with Wheeljack and here you are. Now, this may not be in character, but if I were in his position, in his head, with his thoughts and experiences, this is how I would think about the War.**_

* * *

**War**

The screams. The crying out of the pained. The flaming wreckage and scrap that littered the streets and devastated the scenery. All the forsaken bots caught in the crossfire and underneath toppled buildings. These are the memories that haunt my recharge. These pictures that have burned through my lenses night after night without mercy, forever staining the darkness every time I offline my optics.

And for what?

An idiotic, fragged up War that doesn't give two slags about it's own destructive nature. I've always been a Wrecker. Always have, and always will, but I didn't used to have to watch my back so readily. Didn't used to have so many different reasons to keep a grenade on hand. Sure, I've always done it anyway, even before things turned to slag in bucket, but it quickly became a necessity for survival.

There's nothing glorious about War. Nothing brilliant and noble. It's just a bunch of wayward glitches that think they're right and everyone else is wrong. Absolutely selfish and conceited is what they are. Not even the ones that struggle to keep the corrupted from taking control are exempt from this. They too fight and kill for their own beliefs, and they too have obscure senses of right and wrong.

Even Prime, this honorable and supposedly wonderful leader, doesn't fully recognize what's going on. He's arrogant, speaking of the wrongdoings of the Decepticons and all the merciless slaughtering they've done as if his own troops have never come close to such unimaginable crimes. Sure, he's a cool mech now and then, but he doesn't understand. His empathy circuit was wired too strong, that's for sure, but that still doesn't mean he knows what's it was like for us once lower caste members.

That's one thing that Megatron has going for him. Or at least had.

At the start of this thing, when it was only words and preachings and silly little arguments that had no real value, Megatron spoke of the injustice and the selective favoring of the High Council. Yeah, I used to watch the arena matches in Kaon. And yeah, I supported him at the time. Being a slave, a grunt, from the very beginning without his own say in the matter, he spoke of a 'better world' where everyone had the right to choose and we would be whatever the Pit it was we wanted. A free world, with the right boundaries and guidelines but still enough flexibility to move and stretch and live.

Now look where that's gotten us. Sitting in bunkers and waiting for the bombs to drop. Anticipating our own death, and knowing but not _really_ knowing it's right around the corner somewhere. I don't see how they, the gladiator and the librarian, can keep fighting in a continuous back and forth banter that will only end when one of them decides they're too tired to go on.

That's all I am anymore. Tired. So very, very tired.

Tired of this War. Tired of losing everything. Tired of not being able to recharge in peace. No matter what, I'm always haunted with memories. Memories that could have been avoided so easily if a simple choice hadn't been made the way it was.

And I saw the propaganda back on Cybertron. All the motivating slogans and videos broadcast throughout the Autobot controlled territories in attempts to get the Neutral parties, and in some offhand hopes the hidden Decepticons too, to submit to the 'better cause'. The enemies were made out to be monsters. Heartless killing machines with no other drive than to spill energon and destroy lives. At the time, I couldn't believe how anyone could buy that scrap, but looking back on it everything makes so much more sense.

Desperate fools will make desperate decisions.

Yeah, I originally fought beside the Autobots, aiding in every chance I could, but that was mainly because Ultra Magnus dragged me into the mess. Me and the rest of the gang.. I'm not even sure how many of them are still active anymore. Ever since we scattered across the stars I haven't heard from many of the old crew. Though a few I know for certain were offlined..

Like I said before, there's nothing glorious about War. There's no gain in death and conquest and destruction. No valid excuse to begin the fight in the first place. I don't fight for justice and honor and all these fancy words that we stick to a cause we can't find. I don't fight because it's the right or wrong choice in the greater scheme of things.

I fight because it's what I need to do to survive. Nothing more, nothing less. Well.. okay sometimes I'll do it just for the fun of it, because I won't deny that duking out a good aft kicking is sure as Pit enjoyable, but I don't try to give my battles fancy causes and titles that only hide the basic drive.

I leave that to the Autobots.

But one thing that really bothers me is that we haven't gotten anywhere with this War. Neither side has. We've fought and killed and died and destroyed almost everything we held dear. We have almost nothing left, and if we keep it up we'll lose what little we do still have. Yet overall we are in the same position we were in the beginning, just with a lot less soldiers.

And one less planet.

Some nights, when the sky is brightly lit with stars and this organic air is warm and comfortable, when the little Earth bugs are chirping their little tunes and I can listen to all the various serene sounds, I like to imagine this War isn't really going on. That I'm here on this carbon based rock for the learning experience. I like to pretend my friends and family are all safe and well, going along in simple everyday lives back on a perfectly normal and healthy Cybertron where all they have to worry about is whether the annual supply of energon will last until the next restocking.

But all it takes is a single jolt of turbines or a stray scout to snap my wishful dreams back to reality.

So you tell me, because I don't have the time to think about all the possible answers and whatnot. Statistics aren't exactly my strong point. You tell me whether this War is worth it. You tell me whether there is really anything to fight for anymore. Or ever was for that matter. And while you do that, I'll be off kicking some Decepticon can. Because that's all I am useful for doing nowadays.

Living, fighting, and dying.

Well.. actually.. now that I think about it, isn't that all we've ever done?


End file.
